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The similes are very evocative and as similes remind us of the difference between the two worlds — our worlds of engines and music — and the fetus-world of things that can only be compared to things in our world because that is the only world we know; we can’t really know the world in there!

A poem of wonderment…of the wonderful human senses of touch, hearing and sight as they might unfold in the fetus and the newborn, and the personal delight of the poetic voice who imagines it. When do the senses of taste and smell appear, I wonder.. then reading the poem again, I am led through the lovely imagery of “apprentice” and “explorer” to ponder the miracle of it all,

Just look at you John, exploring the poetry of new life, hearing the roar of words in your mind, putting on paper the grace of your soul with a tribute to the wonder of birth. Good stuff my talented friend. Cheers.

I have found myself looking in dictionaries, wondering whether our usage of ‘apprentice’ is different over here in Britain. We will talk about, for example, an apprentice carpenter as a young novice setting out to learn the trade. Similarly I was picturing the new-born baby setting out to learn all about being alive: everything so unfamiliar that even sight had to be learnt. Does that work, would you say? Thank you for interest, Bob.

“Apprentice” reminds me of the French verb “apprendre”–to learn.
Its appearance in this poem opens up a whole world of thought, for me, about nurture vs. nature—how much comes automatically, elementally, to the developing human being, and how much is learned/taught by the environment in which the child grows. A perennial question, certainly, and one worth pondering, though its definitive answer we may never know.

Yes, we do, John. All the trades—carpenter, plumber, electrician—–use that nomenclature of the medieval guilds to indicate competence and professionalism….Apprentice, then Journeyman, then Master. An apprentice plumber works under a Master plumber, as a learner; a Journeyman can work on his own, but hasn’t necessarily “passed” the tests to be licensed as a “Master Plumber,” for example. As a lover of craft, I am always a bit tickled to hear those medieval guild terms still being used!

Sight – is not learned in the intellectual sense as are the skills for becoming a journeyman carpenter. I do understand, appreciate your use of the word apprentice– cultural differences prevail.. thanks for the discussion

Obviously, sight is given, and is not learned in any intellectual sense. But becoming a person, as in learning to live as a human being ( your “apprentice person”) has much to do with fielding the stimuli from an environment that is constantly various and impinging. The use of the word apprentice is poetic here, and can certainly be broad enough to mean “learner” in general. I see no important cultural difference among speakers of English in the US and UK, on this account, John.

Bob, Cynthia — thank you both. Our discussion has sent me back to commentaries on metaphor. I’m fortified. I must agree that learning to use sight is not akin to learning the skills of a journeyman carpenter; yet learning the human skills of interpreting a smile, of recognition, and later of behaviour — under the tuition of mother — may I think be represented as an apprenticeship. The ‘ground’ of the metaphor seems broad enough to sustain it, viewed from this perspective. I’ve found all this very instructive, so many thanks.

Ah, wouldn’t it be wonderful to be experiencing light for the first time ever? To be an apprentice human, learning what the world is expanding along our touch, in our mouth, in our nose, in the music of being who we will become? Thanks for the reminder, John, and congratulations. I assume you have a new grandchild.

So beautiful, John. I was missing Cynthia Jobin and clicked on one of your replies to her blog, which brought me here. So glad I did. And then, as I write now, I noticed one of her replies to your own blog.

Thank you Cynthia, that’s kind. Yes, you’ll find plenty of cross-references between Cynthia Jobin ‘s blog and mine; we encouraged each other, with constructive criticism as well as enthusiasm for each other’s poetry and we exchanged books. At least her literary legacy remains.